Bradford Bulls have entered administration with a grim warning that one of Super League's most successful clubs will be liquidated unless a white knight comes forward in the next 10 days.

Brendan Guilfoyle of the P&A Partnership, which has been appointed as the administrator, said: "We now have just 10 working days to save the club from liquidation because there are no funds to carry on longer. If there is anyone interested in buying the Bulls then we need to hear from them right now because this famous club is now on the brink of extinction."

Chris Caisley, who was chairman during the golden era in which Bradford changed their name from Northern to the Bulls and won four Super League titles between 1997 and 2005, would now appear to be their last hope. He has been working with the other remaining directors since Peter Hood resigned as chairman in May, and is understood to have an agreement for the former coach Brian Noble to return in a management role, but they have so far failed to raise the seven-figure sum necessary to secure the club's future.

That leaves them in danger of becoming the first Super League club to go bust during a season. Plenty of others have entered administration, most recently Wakefield Trinity and the Crusaders last season, but Bradford would seem to be in the most peril since London Broncos relied on the goodwill of the other clubs to relaunch as Harlequins in 2006.

Bradford have been here before, back in 1963 when they went out of business in December in the middle of a season, and a new club was founded the following year with Trevor Foster, the Welsh forward who had come north several decades earlier, playing a role.

This time, however, they have no significant assets other than the players, after selling Odsal, their crumbling old stadium, to the Rugby Football League last winter. They have already thrown themselves on the mercy of their fans once this year, when an appeal from Hood to raise £500,000 to secure their short-term future was successful, to show the continued goodwill that existed for the club in the city and the wider rugby league community. But that money would appear to have been swallowed.

Blake Solly, the RFL compliance officer, made no effort to hide the seriousness of the situation. "It's far too early to speculate on what might materialise if the worst happens, simply because each administration is very different," he told the Bradford Telegraph and Argus. "Bradford Bulls are an iconic name but there are a lot of things which need to happen for the club to keep going."

They are ninth in the Super League table, and in with a shout of qualifying for the play-offs for the first time in four years. They should hold their squad together for the trip to Wigan on Friday, but it would be a brave man who backed them to see out the season.